discussion post

Shared Practice—Reflection and Trends

There is a saying that if you want to predict the future, take a look at the past. We can learn a lot from others who have been successful and from others who have not been so successful. The learning and information we get from those situations can hopefully keep us out of trouble and on the right track.

Equally important is the need for managers to watch the trends that are occurring in this area in order to evaluate how those trends might affect the business. Perhaps there is no area where change occurs more or faster. Often our business operations and processes can barely catch up before the next big technology is introduced. As a starting place, consider how the trends listed here may have already altered your personal or professional experience:

• Big data
• Social media
• Mobile technologies
• Cloud services
• Digitization, access to data and information and knowledge management
• Business intelligence
• Decentralized vs. centralized computing
• Data-driven decision making
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Open Source Software

Then think about how quickly these became part of our way of doing business and living our daily lives. Are there other trends and issues you are seeing? What are some the implications of these advancements (for example, how do these affect business operations, competitiveness, privacy, security, and so on)?

In this Discussion, you will share your knowledge and findings related to business information systems trends with your colleagues. You will explore the similarities and differences in the use of and trends in information systems, as well as the impact of related trends in the various industries of which you and your colleagues are a part.

Reflect back on your readings and learnings from Weeks 1 through 7 in this course.

By Day 3

Post the following:

• Provide a description of 2–3 of the most important things you learned from the course. What surprised you most about what you learned?
• Identify and discuss two trends in business information systems that you think will have a big impact on your organization's business model (or a business model for an organization with which you are familiar) in the next five years.
• Explain how organizations can employ technology and business information systems to promote positive social change within the organization or for the greater good.

Please be specific, and use citations and references as appropriate and necessary.